


Notes

by Carrot_Bunny



Series: MakoHaru Festival 2015 [4]
Category: Free!
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, M/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-17
Updated: 2015-02-17
Packaged: 2018-03-13 18:41:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,030
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3392129
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Carrot_Bunny/pseuds/Carrot_Bunny
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"The first note that was dropped into Haruka’s locker read 'You look very beautiful today'."  Written for the Official Makoharu Festival 2015 - it's posted on their Tumblr page now!</p>
            </blockquote>





	Notes

The first note that was dropped into Haruka’s locker read _You look very beautiful today._

He’d furrowed his brow when he read it. The girls in his class received love notes sometimes, but him? He concluded that it must either have been a practical joke or an accidental delivery, and tossed it into a corner of his locker.

The next day it was, _Good morning! Hope you have a great day!_

And the next, _Your sketches are amazing! Keep going!_

By this time, Haruka had ruled out the possibility of it being a prank – surely no mischief-maker would mention something as obscure as _artwork_. He began to suspect that the sender must’ve mistaken his locker for the girl to his left’s. She was rather good at art; he’d seen her work put up on the bulletin board next to his. So the next day he got to school earlier and hid at the end of the hallway to find out whom the secret admirer was.

As the first trickles of what would soon become a swarming horde of students threaded through the corridor, Haruka saw the boy who sat next to him in class walk up to his locker, look around to see if anyone was watching, then slip a piece of paper through the slot at the bottom and hurry away. He mainly recognized him by sight, for they’d never talked before. The boy was always listening attentively to the teacher whenever he looked towards him, and he himself spent half his time in school staring out the window. He didn’t even know the boy’s name.

That afternoon, Haruka glanced over at the boy during art class to see him struggling with a block of wood and a carving knife. He peeked at the notebook on his desk and made a mental note of the name written on the cover – Tachibana Makoto.

“Need some help with that?”

Makoto looked up – and seemed to almost fall out of his chair at the sight of Haruka standing right beside his desk. “Oh, yes please!”

Haruka spent that period with his chair pulled up to Makoto’s desk, patiently instructing him and sometimes putting down his own carving to guide Makoto’s hand. Remembering the message he’d retrieved that morning after Makoto had left – “You must have a dazzling smile! So don’t forget to smile more!” – he tried to keep the corners of his mouth tilted upwards whenever Makoto looked his way, and was almost blinded by the beaming grins he got in return.

The next morning, Haruka had decided he could get used to this smiling thing. He smiled again as he read the day’s note: _I love watching your hands work, they’re really mesmerizing!_ Then he entered the classroom – and felt the corners of his mouth droop at the sight of Makoto chatting happily with none other than the girl whose locker was to his left.

She sat on Makoto’s other side, he realized. While Haruka was working on his own carving, he must’ve been watching her work – and probably would’ve done so more easily if Haruka hadn’t kept butting in with his tiresome instructions. Haruka was silent as he took his seat, completely missing Makoto’s greeting as he walked past his desk, and did not look at him for the entire day. He still kept the note he’d gotten though, along with all the others he’d received, even the first one which he’d recovered from the depths of his locker.

After school, Haruka drowned his sullen mood in the school pool, which was rarely used by the rest of the student body and so was the ideal place for him to swim his stress out. He only got out of the water when the sun began setting. As he walked home, his wet hair tousled about by the wind, he caught snatches of conversation ahead of him and looked up to see the object of Makoto’s affection with a friend.

“So he couldn’t go to the cinema with you?”

“Yeah.” The girl had dejection written all over her face. “I know he can’t help being sick, but still… I’d been looking forward to it since yesterday, and then his classmate came over and told me of his absence right before class started.”

“Well, you could’ve still gone with someone else. What about Tachibana-kun? He was talking to you this morning.”

“He’s just my lab partner. The only boy I’m interested in is Shinji-kun,” she bemoaned.

Haruka ‘s mind was whirring the rest of the way home. Makoto liked the girl, but she liked someone else. She only thought of him as a classmate, yet she didn’t know of his feelings for her because she never received his notes. And when he realizes that his efforts had been in vain… Haruka pictured the beaming grin of his, then turned it upside-down in his mind. It wasn’t a pretty sight at all.

The next day’s note said _You seemed a little down yesterday. Are you okay?_ That was when Haruka decided to take action. When the last bell rang, he melded into the crowd of students thronging the hallway and slipped a note into Makoto’s locker before anybody noticed. _I was a bit upset, but I’m fine now. Thanks for your concern._

After that, it was a series of messages going back and forth:

_You’re welcome! But how did you know it was me?_

_I saw you drop a note into my locker one morning. Don’t worry, you can keep writing to me if you want._

_Thanks. I’m a little shy, so writing gives me the courage to express what I want to say. I’m happy you don’t mind._

_It’s okay, I understand how you feel. We never have much time to talk in class anyway, so this way I can get to know you better._

As the correspondence continued, Haruka carefully scrutinized every interaction between Makoto and his crush in class, but Makoto seemed to behave as usual when with her. On the other hand though, he’d taken to asking Haruka to go through whatever the teacher had just taught them with him, and those little sessions between periods soon stretched out into lunch breaks together, with Haruka bringing his lunch over to Makoto’s desk and pulling up a chair. He probably hadn’t eaten anything other than mackerel ever since his parents moved and he started living alone, until Makoto began sharing his bentou prepared by his mother.

“So you’ve learned swimming as a kid?” Haruka asked as he bit on one of Mrs Tachibana’s egg rolls.

“Yeah, though I haven’t swum much ever since the community pool closed down. I guess I could swim in the ocean, but I’ve always been uncomfortable doing that since I was little.”

“Huh.” Haruka gulped down the egg roll and helped himself to another. “You know, our school actually has a pool as well.”

Makoto almost dropped his chopsticks. “You’re _kidding_?!”

“It’s true. Right on the top of the west wing, where all the abandoned classrooms are. Only nobody uses it these days, so not many people know about it. It’s pretty quiet, great if you want privacy.” Haruka chewed on the second egg roll, oblivious to Makoto’s thoughtful expression.

The next day he found a bomb in his locker. _Meet me at the school pool after classes. I want to talk to you._

All day he noticed Makoto staring at the blackboard with a vacant expression, his mind seemingly occupied with other things. _He must be too excited about the meeting after school to pay attention,_ Haruka thought. _I wonder what made him suddenly gain the courage to finally talk to her. And on top of it all I’m the one who told him the pool was a good place for privacy! How am I ever supposed to use the place if they keep meeting there from now on? Only they won’t, because she doesn’t even know!_ Amidst his worries, he forgot the small detail that Makoto hadn’t included directions to the little-known school pool in his note.

That afternoon was the first time Haruka had to drag himself to the pool. He hadn’t been able to see any other alternative but to go there himself, give up the ruse, and possibly lose the first close friend he ever had. Clutching his collection of notes, he made his way to his destination with heavy footsteps. _Makoto must think I’m just there to swim when he first sees me._ He did not want to imagine what his reaction would be when he found out the truth.

When he arrived, he could see nobody there at first. Then he saw a figure cutting through the water’s surface from the other end of the pool. As the figure approached, he realized it was Makoto swimming backstroke, pulling himself along the length of the pool with powerful arms. For someone who hadn’t swum in a long time, he seemed to have retained much of his skill.

Makoto reached the end of the pool, stood up and saw Haruka. “Haru! Hold on a minute, I’ll be – wait, why are you holding those?” His eyes had fallen on the notes in Haruka’s hand, and his face seemed to pale as he recognized them.

“I made a mistake.” Haruka held out the notes. “I was wrong to accept these. I was never supposed to, yet I did. I regret that now.”

“Haru…”

“I know I’m not her,” he pushed on, “but I still answered your messages in her place. She likes someone else; she only thinks of you as her lab partner, nothing more, but you don’t know that because you thought she’d gotten your notes, when all along you’ve been putting them in my locker, but - ”

“Haru, what are you talking about?”

“Huh?” He looked up and saw his confusion mirrored in Makoto’s face. “You… don’t know what I’m talking about?”

“Not a single thing! I never meant to send those notes to some girl, I wanted to send them to you!”

Haruka did not know what to make of this sudden turn of events. “You… sent love notes to me?”

Makoto scratched the back of his head in embarrassment. “Did they sound like love notes? I tried to be vague, because I wasn’t sure what you would think of having a male secret admirer.”

“A secret – then why were you so shocked to see me holding them?”

“I thought you brought them here to return them after you rejected me. Your first words kinda gave me the impression that you were refusing my feelings.”

Haruka’s head was spinning. All this time he’d been thinking Makoto fancied a girl, when _he_ was the subject of his crush?! As the notes flapped uselessly to the ground, he looked up and saw the one thing that always calmed him down: water.

“Haru, why are you stripping?! Haru – AAH!”

Makoto got a torrent of water to the face. When he’d wiped his eyes clear, he found Haruka standing in front of him, his blue eyes trained on Makoto’s green ones.

“I get it now. I did make a mistake.”

“You – you did?”

“Yeah. But I’m going to fix it.” Haruka paused before continuing. “That… thank you for the notes. I kept all of them.”

“You did?”

“Didn’t you keep mine?”

“Uh – yeah…”

“Then that’s that.” Haruka tentatively wrapped his fingers around Makoto’s hand underwater. “I feel so foolish, worrying over your liking someone else when it was me all along.”

“So… does that mean you do like me back?”

“Well, your notes were quite persuasive.” Haruka took a step closer. “I guess this means I won’t be finding another note in my locker tomorrow?”

A smile slowly spread across Makoto’s face. “I could tell you my message now, if you want.” He beckoned for Haruka to lean in closer, then whispered in his ear.

Haruka’s response was to dive into the water, and Makoto barely had time to take a breath before he was pulled down as well. In the water, just before his lips were covered by another pair, he could clearly see Haruka’s mouth form the words – _I love you too._

**Author's Note:**

> I suck at love notes; in fact, never had occasion to think any up until now. Good place to start though.


End file.
